Wednesday, June 02, 2004

"Al Jazeera has replaced political parties..."

Hazem Saghieh (bio below), Editor of the Al Hayat newspaper in London, said today at the 11th World Editor's Forum that the Arabic television channel Al Jazeera has partly replaced and taken over the role of political parties in the Middle East. "Al Jazeera is the most influential party in the Arabic World", he said. This development has been helped by technological advances and the decline of traditional political parties in the region, Saghieh explained. "Al Jazeera claims that US military destroyed its offices in Kabul and Baghdad and an Al Jazeera correspondent in Madrid was accused of having helped Arabic terrorists. That is typical for a political party", Saghieh said.

Hazem Saghieh is a Lebanese writer and senior columnist at the AlHayat newspaper in London. He is also the editor of its weekly political supplement "Tayyarat" (currents) and is the author of many books about contemporary Arabic politics and culture.